


Red Cashmere Sweater

by Bouzingo



Series: Red Cashmere Sweater. [2]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Chess, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Natasha goes to school, PTSD, Recovery, The 90s, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 06:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2339312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bouzingo/pseuds/Bouzingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fury determines that Natasha needs to go to school and interact with her peers. So she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Cashmere Sweater

A few months after Natasha and Clint begin to build a rapport, Agent Moritz comes in with a large pile of paperwork that she sets in front of Clint.

“What is this?” Clint asks with a frown.

“Natasha has to go to school,” Moritz says. “This is her catch-up work.”

“School,” Clint repeats. “Natasha at school.”

“Her psychologist is of the opinion that it will be good for her,” Moritz says. “They’ve evaluated her and she is at the seventh grade in terms of education. We want to get her to ninth grade so she can learn with her peers.”

 _She doesn’t have peers,_ Clint thinks, but doesn’t say anything. Natasha has padded in with her book. It’s _Jurassic Park_ , and it’s been slow reading for her, although she seems to like it. She narrows her eyes at Agent Moritz and the paper on the table.

“What is that?” she asks Clint bluntly.

“Um, schoolwork,” Clint says, looking at Agent Moritz, who nods. Natasha turns on her heel and goes back to her room. Clint turns to Moritz. “She doesn’t want to go to school.”

“That’s not up to her,” Moritz says, and sighs when she sees Clint’s expression. “I wouldn’t expect that you would know the value of an education.”

“Having never received one, I think I know an education’s value better than anyone in this organization,” Clint says. “Seeing as the only way I could get employed after I left the circus was shooting trick arrows for a government organization and then babysitting on the weekends. Where did you graduate from? Harvard?”

“Yale. International Development and Languages,” Moritz says.

“Aww student debt, no,” Clint smirks.

“I had a free ride.”

“Oh,” Clint says. “Well that’s a real achievement.”

“Get her caught up, Barton,” Moritz says. “If she has trouble and you can’t help, I’m down the hall.”

Clint waits until she’s gone before going to Natasha’s room, knocking on the door.

“Can I come in?”

“Not if we’re going to talk about school,” Natasha mutters darkly.

“Okay, can I open the door while we talk?” Clint asks. He’s learned more about diplomacy dealing with a temperamental fifteen year old ex-killer than he has from years being a covert part of attachés and entourages.

“Fine.”

Clint opens the door but doesn’t walk over the threshold. Natasha is sitting on her bed in her stocking feet and she has her book, but she’s not really reading it.

“Why don’t you want to go to school?” he asks. Natasha huffs and glares. “Don’t get sullen with me, Natasha. You know it won’t work.”

“At my last school, I learned to murder people,” she says bluntly. She sometimes uses statements like that to try and shock Clint, who she’s learned is fairly unflappable.

“Well, you won’t be learning about that stuff at this school. They probably got you fixed up with the least murdery school in the country,” Clint says. “Are you bothered because it’ll be an American school?”

“No,” Natasha says, gaze shifting downward. “That would not bother me.”

“Is it the other kids, then?”

“Yes,” Natasha says. “I watch a lot of television now that I’m in America. American boys and girls play ballgames and go to the mall. They watch MTV and they know the words to films I haven’t seen. They are not like me.”

“Are you afraid you won’t make friends?” Clint asks. Natasha starts picking at the hem of her shirt, the telegraphed worry tell that she uses to get Clint off her case.

“I don’t like children,” she says. “And they will find me strange.”

“Why don’t we get you caught up and then we can worry about what the other kids think,” Clint says.

Natasha nods. She still looks so unsure.

Clint is worried too, but he’s not going to let on. He’s not going to tell Natasha that he’s worried she’ll read slower than her classmates, or that her writing is nearly indelible chicken scratch produced by hands that learned how to assemble a gun before they learned how to collect thoughts with a pen. He doesn’t know how many of his fears truly apply to Natasha, or if they’re just leftover anxieties from when he was a kid.

Over the next couple weeks Natasha catches up nearly completely with the math and science that her future peers will be studying, but her reading is still slow. Clint figures she doesn’t like any of the grade 10 reading; _Julius Caesar_ seems especially loathsome to her.

“Not a fan of Shakespeare, eh?” Clint says sympathetically when Natasha throws the book down on her table again in frustration. “We could watch one of the movies. That might make it a bit easier.”

Natasha scowls.

“What will that help?” she says. “The English is strange and would be strange even spoken.”

She takes the paperback of _Julius Caesar_ and puts it in her room, coming back with _Jurassic Park_.

“If I have to read then I want to read this one,” she explains.

“It’s cool that you’re reading, Natasha, but that’s not how it’s going to work at school,” Clint says. Natasha’s brow furrows, and she raises her book to her face to ignore Clint.

\--

“Everyone gets jitters before they go to school,” Nick Fury says. “She’s no different than any other kid in summer. Mention school and you are persona non gratis.”

“Except she is different,” Clint says, clearly exasperated. “She’s a war veteran, and fifteen years old. That sets her apart from most people on this planet.”

“I understand that Barton. The reality of her situation has been made abundantly clear to me by everyone responsible for her well-being, not just you,” Fury says bluntly. “And it is my belief that in order to help her, she should have some taste of what normalcy is for a girl of her age.”

“I’ve seen what it’s like. I see that on top of what she’s dealing with, she has the additional stress of getting ready for school, worrying what other kids will think of her,” Clint says.

“That’s normal stress,” Fury says. “In her psychiatric sessions, she is talking more about school and less about the possibility of getting killed by people she used to trust. That’s a step in the right direction. You’ve grown fond of her, Barton. You can’t see that she needs _some_ conflict.”

“I still maintain that I don’t like this idea,” Clint says. “Maybe I’m not a big expert, but I don’t think this is what she needs.”

\--

Agent Moritz brings Natasha a catalogue and tells her to choose whichever clothes she likes for the start of school. Natasha takes a marker and circles all tactical blacks along with Levi jeans and Nikes. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she circles a dark red felted wool coat that will be too heavy for fall but perfect for the winter months.

“Get a lighter jacket, too,” Clint says. “Maybe a sweater. Fall doesn’t get very cold here.”

She circles a red cabled sweater that looks like it’s extremely soft to the touch. The clothes come in large boxes after a couple of days and Natasha seeks out the red sweater almost immediately, pulling it on over her usual uniform of black tee shirt and jeans. It suits her, and Clint can see it is taking a lot of her self-restraint to not hug herself.

The sweater is the second thing, after Clint’s copy of _Jurassic Park_ , that Natasha truly cherishes. She wears it practically every day, retrieves it as soon as it’s been washed, and looks more comfortable in it than she has in anything else.

When the first day of school comes, she holds it even tighter around herself and tries to shrink into it.

“You should finish your breakfast, Natasha,” Clint says. Natasha looks at her oatmeal, and pushes it away. “You’re nervous.”

“Yes,” Natasha finally admits, and stirs her oatmeal listlessly. “The children… the _other_ children won’t like me. I don’t know any of them.”

“They’ll get to know you. You’ll make friends,” Clint promises. “It’s nearly time for Agent Moritz to drop you off.”

Sure enough, there’s a knock on the door. Clint gets up to get it and Natasha starts slipping her books into her dark blue bag.

Agent Moritz is there, looking appropriately motherly, and she’s accompanied by Phil Coulson, who is looking fairly fatherly and has a tin Captain America lunchbox in his hands.

“Good morning!” he says cheerfully to Clint’s raised eyebrow. “Me and Laura are here to drive Natasha to her new school.”

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Clint says. “And Natasha’s pretty on edge, so.”

“Hello Phil,” Natasha says, shouldering her bag.

“We discussed how her first day of school would go after her therapy this week,” Phil explains. “Sorry we didn’t keep you in the loop, Clint.”

He turns to Natasha, and presents her with the lunchbox. She looks at it skeptically.

“It’s mine, from when I was a kid,” he says gently. “Made me feel a bit braver on my first day.”

Natasha sticks her chin out in defiance. She can admit that she’s nervous to Clint but everyone else is not privy to those thoughts. Then she turns to Clint, pausing almost imperceptibly.

“I’ll be right here when you come back,” he promises. “Moritz and Coulson have got you, okay?”

Natasha nods tersely, and sticks her hands in her pockets before she starts to pick at her hems. Then she follows Moritz and Coulson out. It’s the first time she’s going to be outside for such a sustained period. Clint is worried.

\--

The teacher wants to introduce Natasha to the class at the top of first period. Apparently it’s something they do with all new students. Natasha nods, fists clenching in her red sweater. She can deal with the scrutiny of children. She can.

And she does. It’s not nearly as bad as she thought it would be. The class is quiet during the teacher’s quick introduction and then she can sit down.

“Hey,” says the girl beside her. She has beach blond hair and dark brown eyes that make her look like a puppy. “I’m Meghan.”

“Hi,” Natasha says, smiling tentatively, and then turns her attention to the teacher. She likes math a lot compared to the other things she’s had to learn about, and studiously writes down the new formulas, pleased that she’s not as frantic as she thought she’d be.

At the end of the period the teacher takes her aside and gives her a pamphlet for math tutors.

“Just in case,” she smiles. “I know you’ve had to do a lot of catch up and it is really easy to fall behind in calculus. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, okay?”

“Okay,” Natasha says. “Thanks.”

Second period is English, and thankfully Natasha isn’t asked to read out loud. Everyone reads faster than she does, and soon they’ve done the chapter of _To Kill A Mockingbird_ that took her three days to finish. Then they talk about the content for the remaining period. None of the childhood experiences that Scout has are familiar in the least to Natasha. After second period it is lunch hour, and Natasha hasn’t parsed why it takes an hour to eat lunch. Then Meghan catches up to her at the lockers.

“Hi again!” she says. “You got a place to sit for lunch?”

“No,” Natasha says cautiously, pulling out her lunchbox. “Should I?”

“I mean if you want to eat alone I’m down with that,” Meghan says. “But I’ve been the new girl before, and I get it. It’s hard. Where were you before? Homeschooled?”

Natasha shakes her head.

“I moved here from far away,” she says, and when she remembers the state she’s supposed to be from, she adds, “Wisconsin.”

“Whoo,” Meghan says. “Are your parents, like, congressmen or something? That’s a rough move.”

Natasha shrugs.

“They go everywhere,” she says, lunchbox bumping against her side. “It looks like we’re staying here ‘til I finish high school, though.”

She follows Meghan to the caf. There’s so many children around and Natasha’s grip goes a little tighter on her Captain America lunchbox. Meghan smiles at her, and makes a beeline to a table with a few other kids already there.

“You guys, this is Natasha,” Meghan says.

The kids all greet her, introduce themselves. There’s Marlow, a skinny boy with an afro and a Nirvana t-shirt, and Rina, a chubby bespectacled girl who has a notebook open and barely looks up from cramming for a test. Kate J. and Harv are holding hands and sharing tater tots, and Kate C. is the only one apart from Natasha who has a lunchbox, with a man and a woman in suits on it and the phrase ‘I want to believe’.

“Captain America,” Kate C. says, nodding towards Natasha’s lunchbox.

“My dad gave it to me,” Natasha says. “It’s kinda embarrassing.”

“I think it’s cool. Retro,” Kate C. shrugs. Natasha opens her lunch and finds that Coulson packed her double sandwiches. “What was your old school like?”

“Hard,” Natasha says after a minute. “The teachers weren’t any good.”

“That sucks,” Marlow says, nodding sympathetically. “My old school was total bullshit. You planning on joining any clubs? Can you play any instruments?”

“Music? No,” Natasha says. She was barely even allowed to listen to music, and hasn’t found a chance to cultivate a taste for anything since she arrived in America. “I don’t think I’ll join any clubs. I just want to do well in school.”

“You’re allowed to have fun while you’re here, Natasha,” Marlow says, half-joking, and pulls out a foldable chessboard from his bag. “Up for a game of chess?”

Chess, Natasha knows. One of her kinder handlers, who saw here as a young girl as often as he saw an operative, taught her how to play years ago.

That handler died.

At Natasha’s hands.

Natasha blinks back memories, and panic, and watches Marlow set the pieces on the table. She takes a bite from one of her sandwiches while she watches. Lots of vegetables, no meat. She’s grateful for that.

“I’ll go first,” Marlow says, moving a white pawn forward two paces.

Natasha beats him in six moves, allowing herself a little smile at Marlow’s shocked face.

“Holy shit on a stick,” he says. “That was incredible. Chess club finds out their president was trounced in a six-move gambit, they won’t respect me.”

“Why do you want the respect of the chess club, dude,” Meghan says. “Though that was pretty awesome, Natasha. You play a lot?”

Natasha shrugs.

“I don’t play,” she says. “Not usually.”

“You gotta join the club, Natasha. At least, you gotta teach me everything you know. We meet in 106 after school on Wednesdays,” Marlow says.

“I’ll see if I can go,” Natasha says politely.

The rest of the day passes fairly uneventfully. Natasha likes science because they are starting to learn about carbon dating, which means dinosaurs. She’s still only a third of the way through _Jurassic Park_ but she really likes dinosaurs. American History isn’t a very good class; the teacher is boring and it looks like everyone participating takes the time to finish their homework or read a book.

Natasha waits on the steps outside the school for Coulson and Moritz, feeling really tired and ready to head back to the safehouse. She watches the other kids board buses and say bye to their friends or walk to the mall.

“Waiting for your ride?” Meghan asks, sitting with Natasha.

“Yeah,” Natasha says. “You don’t have to wait with me.”

“But I want to,” Meghan says. “You know, I think you’ve got cool potential. You got striking features and have this real air of mystery or something. Plus you _schooled_ Marlow in chess and he’s like a tactical genius. But you gotta get out of your skin, you know?”

Natasha’s response, if she has one, is interrupted by a car pulling up in front of them and Coulson rolling down the window.

“Hey kiddo!” Coulson says with a smile. “Mom’s working late so you can ride shotgun.”

“That’s your dad?” Meghan says. “He looks like a total dad.”

“Thanks?” Natasha says, collecting her bag and walking on over. “It was good talking to you.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow in first!” Meghan yells as Natasha gets in the car.

“She seems nice,” Coulson says while he adjusts his mirrors. “So how was your first day?”

“I don’t talk to you,” Natasha says bluntly.

“Okay,” Coulson says, and gestures to the radio. “Want to choose the station?”

Natasha twists the radio dial until she finds some instrumental music, with no words or drums. Then she stares out the window until they get back to the safehouse.

Clint is there when she gets home, just like he promised. Natasha doesn’t hug him like she badly wants to, but she hugs the red sweater in substitution.

“Hey,” he says. “Rough first day? You didn’t beat anyone up, did you?”

“No,” Natasha says. “I think I made a friend.”

“Well that’s good, isn’t it?” Clint says, and Natasha feels frustrated. It is good that she talked to Meghan, that the other children weren’t scared, but she still feels like something’s going to go wrong.

“I beat someone in chess?” Natasha says tentatively. “And he wants me to join the club.”

“Didn’t know you played,” Clint says. “Is it fun for you?”

Natasha hesitates, because it was fun playing with Marlow, but every other memory she associates with chess is hard to hold in her mind.

“I would like to play more,” she says, brow furrowing, and disappears to her room. She wants to finish her chapter of _Jurassic Park_.

That night for the first time ever, Natasha has a dream that’s not about what she’s done. It’s a dream about dinosaurs and giant chess pieces and she doesn’t feel terrified when she awakes.


End file.
